Bill allowing votes on certificates of obligation killed

A bill aimed tracking - and possibly limiting - the indebtedness of cities schools and towns died late Tuesday on a parliamentary maneuver.

A significant feature of Senate Bill 14 was that it created a mechanism to put certificates of obligation to a vote. The certificates are debt, typically for infrastructure, but unlike bonds, they are for relatively small amounts and they are not placed on the ballot where voters can approve or kill them.

Under SB 14, certificates of obligation could have been put to the voters if advocates could gather signatures of 5 percent of regsietered voters demanding it. As House debate stretched late into the night Tuesday, a point of order was raised against the bill and it failed.